National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1364
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Re: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I’m writing as the daughter of an NDIS participant with Parkinson’s disease. My mum has a progressive condition and I’m scared that several provisions in this Bill will make it harder for her to access appropriate support now and as her needs change. I respond to specific parts of the bill below.
Schedule 1, Part 8: Treatment Requirement
The Bill says an impairment isn’t permanent unless the person has tried every appropriate treatment in Australia, with financial circumstances and location explicitly stated as irrelevant.
Mum sees three different physiotherapists, does boxing for Parkinson’s, and has had a full functional capacity assessment. Parkinson’s doesn’t respond to treatment by removing the impairment. Treatment slows the decline. That’s all it can do. A requirement to exhaust all available treatments before being considered to have a permanent impairment is the wrong standard for a progressive neurological condition.
Schedule 1, Part 2: Reassessment Threshold
Mum has had two falls. Her fatigue and freezing episodes are getting worse. Under this Bill, she could only request an unscheduled review if she can prove a “significant and ongoing change in functional capacity that substantially reduces” daily functioning, meaning she’d need to have already substantially declined before getting help.
The Act still contains early intervention principles that say act before deterioration. For someone with a degenerative condition, support that always arrives after decline is not early intervention. It is a response when in crisis.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1364
Schedule 1, Part 3: “Directly” Arising from an Impairment
Mum’s psychology sessions aren’t general mental health support. They address freezing of gait, neurological apathy, and executive dysfunction, all documented Parkinson’s symptoms that affect her physical safety. Without those strategies, she needs more paid support hours for things she could otherwise manage herself.
Under a strict reading of “directly,” anxiety or apathy could be argued not to arise directly from Parkinson’s, but from living with it. The government hasn’t clarified how this word will be applied. For complex neurological conditions, cascading effects are the norm, not the exception, and the Bill provides no guidance on where “directly” ends.
Schedule 1, Part 4: Ministerial Power to Cut Funding Categories
Community participation supports are flagged for a 50% cut from October 2026, by ministerial instrument, with no individual assessment and no ability for Parliament to block or review it. Mum’s Parkinson’s boxing group and neurological physio group sessions are community participation supports. They are clinically supervised and specifically designed for Parkinson’s. A blanket percentage cut has no way of knowing that. It just cuts.
Schedule 1, Part 6: Informal Supports
This is what worries me most personally. The Bill requires the CEO to consider the “desirability of maintaining and strengthening informal supports” before approving funded ones.
My dad works full time running a sole trader business, he is now the sole income earner in their household. If he reduces hours or stops working to provide more care, they lose the financial stability that allows them to manage mum’s condition at all. He’s already doing more than he should have to with no training and no backup.
I live hours away and help where I can, but I have limits too. The existence of family members shouldn’t be treated as a reason to fund less. That’s not the same as those family members being able to provide safe, sustainable care. The original case for the NDIS was built on evidence that formal supports prevent informal care networks from collapsing, and when they do collapse, the costs land elsewhere anyway.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1364
In summary
For someone like my mum, these provisions don’t create one single problem, they accumulate to create an unfair outcome. I’d ask the committee to recommend that the Bill explicitly address the needs of people with progressive neurological conditions, particularly around the treatment requirement, the reassessment threshold, auto-renewal without review, and the assumption that informal supports can expand to fill funding gaps without cost.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit.
, family member of an NDIS participant with Parkinson’s disease, Queensland